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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27361948">the patron of all things</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolaSola/pseuds/SolaSola'>SolaSola</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dimension 20 (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>(For Kug), Campaign 03 Season 02: The Unsleeping City: Chapter II, Campaign 03: The Unsleeping City, Diverges from canon between TUC1 finale and TUC2 Episode 1, Gen, Kugrash centric, Post-Canon, Warlock Pacts</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 16:09:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,368</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27361948</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolaSola/pseuds/SolaSola</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Kingston’s always surrounded by people though. And Kug was too, before the Bagel of All Things. People and rats and gators and everyone else. For someone who’d thought he’d cut himself off from everyone he knew, it turns out he maybe ended up connected to more people in the end.</p><p>[Kug in the after, including perhaps becoming the Patron Of All Things for a kid who just wants twelve swords.</p><p>Or: do you ever get so lonely you become a warlock patron?]</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Bruce "Kugrash" Kugrich &amp; Cody "Night Angel" Walsh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>96</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Dimension 20's The Unsleeping City Prompt Meme</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>the patron of all things</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">



        <li>In response to a prompt by
            Anonymous in the <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/collections/TUC_Prompt_Meme">TUC_Prompt_Meme</a>
          collection.
        </li>
    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p><strong>Prompt:</strong><br/>existence After, for a bitter little rat man who ate a bagel and became Everything</p><p>Written with major TUC1 spoilers, but before the premiere of TUC2 with full awareness all this might get horrifically jossed within less than two weeks. Major Character Death warning is for the obvious (TUC1), but the overall fic isn't sad, or at least is a canon-typical amount of sad for Kug in life as well. Rating is mostly for language/drug mention, also canon-typical for Kug. I'm not sure whether the spiralling trippiness of this fic ended up canon-accurate for the eater of the Bagel of All Things or just ended up confusing, but be warned for that as well!</p><p>I hope it's okay I took this prompt and decided to sprinkle in some of the meta that's been floating around since the TUC2 trailer drop!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It's a little lonely sometimes, yknow? Being everything. And yourself. And yourself being everything, everything being yourself. </p><p>It's a mindfuck. Kug doesn't regret it (that part is a mindfuck in and of itself. Kug's used to regretting pretty much everything) but it'd be nice to have someone to talk to, you know? Instead of just inhabiting everybody, at every time, in every timeline, in every place, all the time. Or whatever the fuck. </p><p>There was a while there where he was floating kind of above the city, vibrating in every fractal of every snowflake falling at the same time, feeling the ebb and flow of the city heat island like a topographical map. But Kug's never really belonged in the sky, and fuck it, if he's gotta be every part of New York he's gonna let himself be the comfortable ones sometimes. </p><p>So he projects himself through subway tunnels and sewer mains, follows the mazing city utility lines. He's still a part of all of it and all of it is a part of him, but it's nicer down here in the earth. Cozier. Warmer. Kug zips along the third rail, being every wire at once and every electron at once, and he glories in the speed because that's still fun. He can pull enough of his consciousness together to remember Ricky's Lambo fondly, because having the wind in your fur is still more exhilarating than being the wind, in everybody's fur, no matter how fast you're going. </p><p>He's everything everywhere all the time all-knowing all-seeing, but he doesn't even really consider leaving the city. And yeah, he knows he sounds like fucking Kingston, even in his own head, but he can't actually bring himself to be that mad about it. </p><p>Kingston’s always surrounded by <em> people </em> though. And Kug was too, before the Bagel of All Things. People and rats and gators and everyone else. For someone who’d thought he’d cut himself off from everyone he knew, it turns out he maybe ended up connected to more people in the end.</p><p>Kug doesn’t really worry if the folks he left behind will miss him. Sofie and Pete and the rest will take care of Wally, and of New York. The kids are alright, better than Kug ever was. They don’t need to miss him. </p><p>“Dad?”</p><p>It’s his voice, that being his son’s voice, that being the voice of a billion billion other fathers and other sons all at the same time at all different times that have ever existed. What?</p><p>“It’s Pete,” Pete says, and right, it’s his son’s voice but also Pete’s voice but also his voice—</p><p>It’s Pete, and it’s grounding. Kug doesn’t know how long it’s been since he ate the bagel (he knows, because he knows all things, but also he can’t remember right now because he’s focusing on remembering himself and Pete and David and Wally. It’s fucking hard, okay? He’s doing it.)</p><p>“It’s a Mind Link so you can talk to David. I’m just translating,” Pete says. “We just told him that you, you know. Kicked it. Ate the bagel.”</p><p>“Hey David,” Kug says. “I'm becoming one with the world. It's fuckin' nuts.” </p><p>“I guess then you will be around,” David says. And “Love you, dad,” David says. </p><p>And Kug knows everything now, so he knows he means it, and all the ways he means it, and all the times he hasn’t been able to mean it, and all the times he, Kug, will have a chance to change whether he means it or not. </p><p>“Love you, David,” Kug says. He means it, too. </p><p>And that, for a change, is not a mindfuck.</p><hr/><p>He mindlinks with Pete, once in a while, when Pete’s sacked out on the couch at his hole-in-the-wall apartment over the hole-in-the-wall bookstore after a long day of dealing with people. Pete tells him about David, about Wally, about Ricky and Sophia and Kingston and Rowan, about himself and how his day went too. </p><p>Kug’s still a little lonely and sometimes has to take himself on joyrides through the subway tunnels (on the plane of consciousness, and the plane of all things, and all planes that have ever existed) to fill his time, which is eternity. But he’s still got a lot to work on, and maybe a little more time and space to work on it, and people still there for him to learn it for. </p><hr/><p>“You don’t have to sign me your fuckin’ soul, Jesus, isn’t there enough soulsucking going on in this city for you already?” Kug doesn’t have a physical body with which to sigh anymore, but he sure would be if he had, and he’s pretty sure the energy radiating off his consciousness into the <em> universe </em>’s consciousness is broadcasting that cosmically to every version of himself that could, would, and will ever be. For better or for worse, though, his frustration probably isn’t being felt by the kid he’s talking to, in front of one of the spots Kug used to drop off blankets and food on winter nights. </p><p>They’re just barely past being a kid, almost as young as David was when Kug left, so Kug doesn’t follow up his metaphysical sigh with any actual rage. Just tries to start again. “Just sign me somethin’ else instead, what the hell. Or maybe like. Drop me a line every once in a while, just because a guy knows everything in the universe doesn’t mean he <em> knows </em> everything in the universe, you know?”</p><p>The barely-past-a-kid does a noncommittal shrug-nod thing. Yeah, seems about right. Kug would sigh again, if he could. He doesn’t really know what answer he was looking for, anyway. </p><p>“Yeah, I gotchu,” they say. </p><p>Kug doesn’t go looking for folks who want power—he could spend his time around the stink of the Financial District any day if he wanted that. They don’t want cosmic knowledge, they want cocaine, and Kug’s uninterested in giving that to them.</p><p>But he’s got power, or knowledge, or whatever you’re supposed to call the thing you become after eating a Bagel of All Things and your consciousness expands into the universe in fading spirals and fractals and shapes that you now know the name of. And this kid—this kid doesn’t remind him of Wally, or David, or himself at this age. Maybe this kid reminds him of Pete, whoever he would have been at this age (Kug doesn’t know, or he does but he doesn’t <em> know </em>). And Kug doesn’t regret being the universe and the universe being him now, but in true ratlike fashion, he’s gonna try to squeeze what he can out of it. For this kid.</p><p>“Sweet,” Kug says, and he hopes the cosmic force letting him Mind Link is letting him put a gravelly New York roll into the word, drawing it out. “Deal’s a deal, don’t think I’m gonna regret it. What can I do for you, though. Cosmic knowledge is kinda vague, yknow?”</p><p>The kid mutters something. </p><p>“Kid. I know everything but I don’t <em> know </em> everything, okay if you speak up? Also, what’s your name?”</p><p>Kug catches them saying “Cody” and then a mumble of something else. It takes a second for him to parse it.</p><p>“You want a SWORD?”</p><p>Cody coughs, shuffles their feet. “Maybetwelve?”</p><p>“Oh, Jesus, kid, you want TWELVE swords?” Kug’s wishing for a physical being again because he sure would be scrubbing a paw over his brow right now. Jesus. This kid. </p><p>“Alright. Jesus. Twelve fuckin’ swords. Why the hell not though? Why the hell not. This kid.”</p><p>Kug shakes his head (cosmically. Nonphysically. Some things, even with all the power of the universe behind them, just don’t have the same impact as when even a hairy little rat does them) but a deal’s a deal and he likes this kid, so he pulls his cosmic being together for a sword. Twelve of them.</p><p>Cody is wearing somehow too many layers but also not enough for a New York winter, and so they've been looking small and shrunken down this whole time, but right now they look <em> delighted </em>. </p><p>And Kug takes a second to think about it and decides, yknow what? It’s fuckin’ kinda awesome. </p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This fic was in response to an anonymously submitted prompt in londer's TUC Prompt Meme; I don't know who you are, anon, but I hope you like this fic!</p><p>In my head this last section of the fic is called the "Cody Coda." For reasons. </p><p>Kudos and comments are soul food even better than those Episode 2 street food momos, and I reply to every one! </p><p>This fic is rebloggable <a href="https://mordredmanor.tumblr.com/post/633735151572172800/the-patron-of-all-things-solasola-dimension-20">here</a> on my tumblr <a href="https://mordredmanor.tumblr.com/">@mordredmanor</a>!</p></blockquote><div class="children module" id="children">
  <b class="heading">Works inspired by this one:</b>
  <ul>
    <li>
        <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28577631">the patron of all things [Podfic]</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackglass/pseuds/blackglass">blackglass</a>
    </li>
  </ul>
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